Union Sergeant Frank Donaldson of the 1st California struggled to help a wounded friend into a boat returning to Harrison’s Island, then turned to make his way back to the fight raging at the top of the 70-foot-high Ball’s Bluff. A man whose lower jaw had been shot away was in his path, but Donaldson had to ignore him; his mission was to help serve a mountain howitzer, not to render aid. Upon reaching the summit, he began to gather rocks that could be fired out of the cannon, as all the ordnance that had been brought over had been expended. During periodic lulls in the firing, he could hear the incongruous sound of a band on the island playing military airs.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in America's Civil War magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

Donaldson’s regiment was part of a 1,700-man force fighting an unintended and unplanned battle near Leesburg, Va. That day, October 21, 1861, was one that Donaldson would not likely soon forget.

The Battle of Ball’s Bluff was a Union debacle that occurred during a period of quiet in the Eastern theater, ensuring it a great deal of publicity. Southerners celebrated it as a follow-up thrashing to First Manassas, while Northerners bemoaned yet another defeat in northern Virginia. As such, the little fight would have major implications, particularly for the Union.

Despite traditional historical interpretations, the engagement was not the result of a preplanned Federal attempt to take Leesburg. It was rather an accident that evolved out of the carelessness of an inexperienced infantry officer who reported seeing something that was not there.

Captain Chase Philbrick’s Company H, 15th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, was picketing Harrison’s Island, an island 2 miles long and 300-400 yards wide that bisects the Potomac River at Ball’s Bluff. The bluff itself, some 35 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., runs for about 600 yards along the Virginia shore, rising steeply from the 50-yard-wide flood plain that separates it from the river.

On October 20, Philbrick’s commander, Brig. Gen. Charles P. Stone, whose Maryland-based division was rather grandly known as the Corps of Observation, began moving troops around to give the impression that he was about to cross in force in response to an order from Army of the Potomac commander Maj. Gen. George McClellan that he should conduct ‘a slight demonstration’ to see what effect it might have on the enemy.

McClellan’s belief that the Confederates might have abandoned Leesburg spawned that order, and on October 16-17, the Rebels had indeed left the town. Regional Confederate commander Colonel Nathan G. ‘Shanks’ Evans had been keeping a wary eye on the growing Federal forces across the river. The threat seemed to grow on October 9, when Union Brig. Gen. George McCall crossed his 12,000-man division at Chain Bridge and established a camp at Langley, Va., 25 miles east of Leesburg.

A week earlier, on October 3, Colonel Edward D. Baker’s large ‘California Brigade’ reinforced General Stone’s division, bringing the Union numbers to something over 10,000 men near Ball’s Bluff. Baker and his brigade were a story unto themselves. The four regiments were made up mostly of Pennsylvania men, but had been tagged the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th California because Baker had long been affiliated with California and wanted it formally represented in the Eastern army. Baker was, in fact, a senator from Oregon and a close friend of Abraham Lincoln from the prewar political arena. So close were the two that the president had named his second son Edward Baker Lincoln.

Evans interpreted McCall’s and Baker’s movements to mean an imminent advance on Leesburg. The town was strategically located on the Confederacy’s Potomac River frontier due to several militarily usable fords across the river and two working ferry sites. Whoever controlled the river there controlled invasion routes into Virginia. Several fortifications had been built to protect the area, including Fort Evans along the Edwards Ferry road, some three miles south of Leesburg. Evans, quite reasonably, became concerned that he did not have enough men. His brigade numbered only 2,500 to 2,800 men, and the closest supporting troops were 25 to 30 miles away along the Bull Run line.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to